Hi All,
So I woke up this morning and went down to my rec room to check on my first batch in the fermentation bucket. As soon as I opened the door to the room I immediately smelled a stringent sweet/sour smell. I'm not quite sure what to compare it to. I immediately freaked out and thought something might have gone wrong...
I have a yeast starter for my next batch (brewing today) on the stir plate, I took a whiff and it actually smelled really good. I then put my nose down near the active air lock on the bucket of new brew and that was definitely where the smell was coming from. Lots of negative thoughts started dancing through my head including what's going to happen if my dear wife goes down there and smells this. You can't smell it in the rest of the house, only in that room, she doesn't go down much but I certainly don't want to give her any ammunition to shoot down my new hobby.
I've got a Hefeweizen in the bucket and I immediately searched the forum, found lots of things about this, all of which ultimately point me to believe this is normal. But... Is this normal?
Temperature on the fermometer is 66F, started out between 62 and 64 but after the fermentation started getting active has settled down right around 66-67 degrees. I control the temp very well in this room so I'm confident that's where it will stay (and was quite proud that I could get that temp).
Airlock is fairly active (not crazy active) but I assume the smell is coming from the bubbles, hopefully those yeast are just ripping which results in the smell.
I didn't freak out enough to take the lid off, I'm actually quite patient and although I've spent more time than I'd like to admit sitting on a chair watching for bubbles I haven't done anything to risk contamination.
My buddy is giving me a chest freezer and I plan on converting that into a fermentation chamber in the future, hopefully that will contain the smells enough so the wife doesn't have a heart attack.
I'm just looking for a hug and for someone to tell me it will be alright...
Thoughts?
RP
So I woke up this morning and went down to my rec room to check on my first batch in the fermentation bucket. As soon as I opened the door to the room I immediately smelled a stringent sweet/sour smell. I'm not quite sure what to compare it to. I immediately freaked out and thought something might have gone wrong...
I have a yeast starter for my next batch (brewing today) on the stir plate, I took a whiff and it actually smelled really good. I then put my nose down near the active air lock on the bucket of new brew and that was definitely where the smell was coming from. Lots of negative thoughts started dancing through my head including what's going to happen if my dear wife goes down there and smells this. You can't smell it in the rest of the house, only in that room, she doesn't go down much but I certainly don't want to give her any ammunition to shoot down my new hobby.
I've got a Hefeweizen in the bucket and I immediately searched the forum, found lots of things about this, all of which ultimately point me to believe this is normal. But... Is this normal?
Temperature on the fermometer is 66F, started out between 62 and 64 but after the fermentation started getting active has settled down right around 66-67 degrees. I control the temp very well in this room so I'm confident that's where it will stay (and was quite proud that I could get that temp).
Airlock is fairly active (not crazy active) but I assume the smell is coming from the bubbles, hopefully those yeast are just ripping which results in the smell.
I didn't freak out enough to take the lid off, I'm actually quite patient and although I've spent more time than I'd like to admit sitting on a chair watching for bubbles I haven't done anything to risk contamination.
My buddy is giving me a chest freezer and I plan on converting that into a fermentation chamber in the future, hopefully that will contain the smells enough so the wife doesn't have a heart attack.
I'm just looking for a hug and for someone to tell me it will be alright...
Thoughts?
RP
